On the 24th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests Index on Censorship calls on the Chinese government to honour its constitutional commitment to free speech and to allow access to information about the events. Sara Yasin writes
Some UK politicians have said the murder of a soldier in Woolwich, London this week demonstrates the need for greater surveillance of communications data. But would a “snooper’s charter” really have made a difference? Index asked
Emma Carr of Big Brother Watch and Jamie Bartlett of Demos for their views
The recent arrest of Ilkin Rustamzadeh highlights how Azerbaijan’s authorities use trumped up charges to silence messages they are not comfortable with, blogger Ali Novruzov writes from Baku.
Software engineer and open-source advocate Bassel Khartabil spent his second birthday in prison yesterday. Index calls on the Syrian government to release Khartabil.
• Bassel’s second birthday in prison
Software engineer and open-source advocate Bassel Khartabil will spend his second birthday in prison today. On his birthday and the 799th day of Syria’s conflict, Index calls on the Syrian government to release Khartabil. We’ve asked friends of Bassel from around the world to share their birthday messages to him with us.
Tunisian member of radical feminist group FEMEN was arrested Sunday after allegedly attempting to stage a topless protest. Sara Yasin reports
Members of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression are currently facing terror charges for their work fighting censorship. Sara Yasin reports
In the last week, Bahrain’s treatment of its citizens and their right to free expression has been repeatedly in the news. Sara Yasin reports on a spate of developments that raise questions about the Bahraini government’s commitment to free speech.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) recently released the Democracy Index for 2012, and it paints a bleak picture of where we are with democracy around the world today. “There has been a decline in some aspects of governance, political...
Syria appears to be cut off from internet access, according to reports from web monitoring groups. Google's transparency report shows that access to its services has been cut off in the country since 22:00 local time on Tuesday. Similarly, web...
Moroccan atheist Imad Eddin Habib is now on the run, after police began searching for him last week. Habib told Irshad Manji‘s Moral Courage TV that officers confronted his father, asking him to bring an end to his son’s activism. Habib is the founder of the Council of Ex-Muslims in Morocco, which aims for the “application of a secular constitution.” The 22-year-old student has gained a reputation for his activism and controversial posts online, including a photograph of himself eating ice cream during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Shortly before he went into hiding, Habib was featured in an article on a high profile Moroccan news site, and police were searching for him hours after it was published. Atheism is […]
South Africa’s parliament yesterday approved a controversial bill aimed at protecting state secrets. Dubbed the “secrecy bill” by its critics, the Protection of State Information bill was passed by 189 votes to 74. Campaigners against the bill warned of the “chilling effect” it could create for anyone fighting to bring government corruption to light. The Right2Know campaign has been working against the bill since its introduction in 2010, and has vowed to continue fighting against the bill, which now must be signed by Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s president, in order to go into effect. Although the bill was amended last year to include a clause on public interest, the campaign says that the modified bill still “only has narrow protection for whistleblowers […]